My personal opinion in starting a colony

[AntChuck]

I know in the wild the vast majority of queens tend to start colonies by themselves. However since I caught my huge amount of tetramorium queens I noticed a trend... all my colonies with 2 queens have large amount of larva nearing pupae stage... nearly triple single queen set ups and strangely enough more than the 3 queen set ups. The 3 queen set ups seem to be more advanced in terms of pupae but there is a lesser amount. The single queens have a variety of eggs, larva and pupae in smaller amounts. The 2 queen set ups have nearly all in the larva (nearing pupae) stage.

[antnest8]

hmmm, tetremorium you say??

I know some queens can stay together until the first workers hatch then they fight to the death. this is most likely the outcome. But still Tetremotium is an aggressive species and i am surprised they have made it this far? are you sure they are tetremorium? if you are I would like to see how this turns out in the end.

cool finds by the way.

[AntChuck]

hmmm, tetremorium you say??

I know some queens can stay together until the first workers hatch then they fight to the death. this is most likely the outcome. But still Tetremotium is an aggressive species and i am surprised they have made it this far? are you sure they are tetremorium? if you are I would like to see how this turns out in the end.

cool finds by the way.

Yeah Tetramorium Immigrans. They have had a rough journey to say the least. A little over a month ago I rescued over 30 of them from my swimming pool but I was headed to vacation and had to place them all together... at thst point all of them were still winged so I wasnt even sure if they were mated. 10 days later when I returned home the bulk of them had shed their wings and their was a very large cluster of eggs (hundreds). I had to seperate them the best I could into set ups so when I was removing them from the jar several ended up paired or more with other queens. I dont remember the original composition but as of right now for test tubes I have 2- 3 queen set ups, 7-2 queen set ups and 13-single queen set ups. I've had 5 die and released 6. Of those 5 that died 4 were results of aggression... one of them was a case in which both queens were mortally wounded... the loser had no legs or antenna, the winner had 2 legs and 1 antenna. I introduced another queen to claim the brood though.

In addition to those set ups I have a AC Tower with Tetramorium that has a single queen and several workers and also a cheap uncle milton ant farm (poor choice of housing in retrospect) that had 6 queens. They killed one well over a week ago and another dug out of the main chamber and is solitary however the group of 4 in their has had 2 nanatics for at least 3 days and no aggression or signs of aggression from the queens. If this colony ends up with multiple queens I will call it a victory but I feel getting them out of this ant farm will be a real challenge.

[antnest8]

If this colony ends up with multiple queens I will call it a victory but I feel getting them out of this ant farm will be a real challenge.

yah it will be a victory one of the only times tetremorium is considered polygenous!

[Hawkeye]

hmmm, tetremorium you say??

I know some queens can stay together until the first workers hatch then they fight to the death. this is most likely the outcome. But still Tetremotium is an aggressive species and i am surprised they have made it this far? are you sure they are tetremorium? if you are I would like to see how this turns out in the end.

cool finds by the way.

Yeah Tetramorium Immigrans. They have had a rough journey to say the least. A little over a month ago I rescued over 30 of them from my swimming pool but I was headed to vacation and had to place them all together... at thst point all of them were still winged so I wasnt even sure if they were mated. 10 days later when I returned home the bulk of them had shed their wings and their was a very large cluster of eggs (hundreds). I had to seperate them the best I could into set ups so when I was removing them from the jar several ended up paired or more with other queens. I dont remember the original composition but as of right now for test tubes I have 2- 3 queen set ups, 7-2 queen set ups and 13-single queen set ups. I've had 5 die and released 6. Of those 5 that died 4 were results of aggression... one of them was a case in which both queens were mortally wounded... the loser had no legs or antenna, the winner had 2 legs and 1 antenna. I introduced another queen to claim the brood though.

In addition to those set ups I have a AC Tower with Tetramorium that has a single queen and several workers and also a cheap uncle milton ant farm (poor choice of housing in retrospect) that had 6 queens. They killed one well over a week ago and another dug out of the main chamber and is solitary however the group of 4 in their has had 2 nanatics for at least 3 days and no aggression or signs of aggression from the queens. If this colony ends up with multiple queens I will call it a victory but I feel getting them out of this ant farm will be a real challenge.

It is certainly not unheard of to have multiple queens starting off a colony together even for a single queen species. They can actually help each other take care of the brood and I assume the increased interaction with other ants will actually have a beneficial effect as well. However, as you have noticed, at some point there can be only one, and the queens will fight to the death.